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Comment by ajsnigrutin | Hacker News Reader

> The more I see of social media, the more I'm convinced that it's not really a fulfilling way to share and socialize on the internet.

I kinda miss the "old" social media, where it was media and also social... you would open whatever (facebook, myspace, instagram...) and you'd see your friends, plates of what they're eating, some attention seeking statuses, wedding photos, invites to birthdays, etc.

I have no idea if people stopped posting all that or if algorithm hid all that content behind random content it wanted to push instead, so you get zero of that but a lot of random news stories, "reels" and random videos from influences you don't follow and are not interested in, and basically a lot of not-social stuff. I know there's more money for the social network if they show me artificially protracted diy wideos and "you won't believe..." crap, but that made me leave one "social" network after another.

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I think the whole influencer trend ruined it. You literally gave people an incentive to be as loud as possible so they can make as much money as possible. Where is the incentive to connect?

Also, Social media sold us the idea that hey you can stay in touch with everyone! But in reality, what is gave people was a new form of communication in broadcasting. In real life, you always directly interact with people or groups of people but the primary way you communicate in social media is basicslly shout into the void via status updates, stories, images etc. Its became about who you are, not a way to connect to people.

I really never bought or still buy the idea that you need social media to stay connected to your friends. I haven't used it in a decade and i still have friends who i interact with via messaging apps etc. I have never missed social media and realize most things people post have 0 relevance to my life so why am i spending my precious time going through this shit and making zuck and silly influencers money for free?

Sure, i might want to follow an influencer or two and look at their videos, but I want my "feed" to be "social", so people i choose to follow, be it real life friends, or even influencers, but not "random" content from sources I don't follow.

I have a lot of friends who have moved abroad, changed jobs, had kids, etc., and social networks gave me all that info, plus I could contact them in a "lighter" way than taking the phone and calling them, plus you could make groups of people (classmates, coworkers from previous job, etc.). There were also a lot of "we're at <local bar>, if anyone wants to join us" posts back in the time, and since i lived 5 minutes away, I joined or even posted that status if I was one of the first people there, and other came... now it's hours of coordination just to meet for a beer.

Basically, it was easier to reach people who are "not that close" to you that you would directly call them, and you find out stuff (who moved where, who has a kid now, etc.). Now I don't know any of that, but I get served a fake video of someone inserting a battery into the antenna connector of a tv.

From my personal point of view (because this is subjective of course) but like there was never any point of caring about any of those people to me. It just wasn't a good enough use of my time and the algorithims are literally desinged to make me addicted and suck away my attention. I couldn't care less if Ben who i met at work 10 years ago and havent spoken to in over 7 is having a kid or moved to Spain or whatever. I made a consious choice to step away from that and really care what I was doing with my attention which again imo has lead to better results and not a lot of social degradation (i dont think my irl social life would be different if i was on social media)

100% agree with this. The whole "influencer" industry (let's be honest it's about manipulating you) is peak enshitification.

I quit twitter cos it became a cesspool. IG needs aggressive curation and keeping notifications off. Even bluesky became rage bait. And only watch a few channels of YouTube thru FreeTube.

Maybe I just old grumpy geek but after nearly 2 decades of social media I've yet to find the "social" part. It is in the main a bucket into which anyone can vomit their media and hysteria du jour.

It was a good experiment but it's done.

Pieces has promise if they can come up with a curation process that matches the ideals of their platform. I truly hope it works out because part of me wants there to be a place online for people to share publicly without fear of doxing or advertising.

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